Customer Comments

......Takes the Frazier-Ali Wars to a new level of thought, August 4, 2001
Reviewer: don j roth from ellicott city, md United States
Simply, this book needed to be written. It details the most significant rivalry in boxing history and challenges the legacy and legend of Ali. There is some choppiness to this book early on in terms of writing style but true boxing fans will not be able to put it down. I have this feeling that Mark Kram was as dismayed as I was when Ali was named the greatest Sportsman of our time by Sports Illustrated given his shabby treatment and cruel theatrics towards one of the most magnificent warriors of our time (Frazier). How can you blame Frazier for the way he feels? Finally, a sportswriter of great knowledge and literary capability has exhibited enough courage to challenge myth. Philly: Tear that silly statue down of Stallone and replace it with one for Smokin' Joe.

Customer Comments

Fink's Fighters, June 29, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from New York, New York United States
Larry Fink has captured the essence of the heart of boxing throughout this book. He's caught specific moments which go unnoticed on a daily basis in the gym and made them immortal. Most specific and touching are those photos of Fighter and Trainer in the locker room before the fight. An excellent, well written dabble on the history of boxing accompanies the photos as well. nice. 

Customer Comments

CALM AFTER THE STORM, November 2, 2000
Reviewer: Bonita L. Davis from Decatur, Georgia
Rubin Carter's unjust incarceration should shatter all illusions that in the United States of America anyone can get a fair and just trial. Carter's saga certainly proved that justice isn't blind. Carter's case is an in-your-face look at what is deeply wrong with our criminal justice system. Yet it is more than that. There is another side to the story.

Lesra, a young black teenager, purchases Carter's biography of what happened. Inspired by this giant, Lesra along with his Canadian guardians take on the quest of proving Carter's innocence. Their love, dedication and commitment prove that even in the worst of times there is hope. This book is the story of that hope unfolding.

Upon reading the book, three stories unfold; Lesra's, Rubin Carter's and the Canadians. Of course Carter's story predominates throughout the book while Lesra and the Canadians provide a nice back drop. The fact of the "Canadians" are not mentioned by name gives you a feeling of them being mere objects in the work of freeing Carter. Even Lesra doesn't receive the full attention that he deserves in this intertwining story.

Even Carter becomes an enigma. We really don't get to know the man but we are bombarded with information concerning his case. Perhaps other texts will make up for the above defientcies. I feel the most important part was Carter's refusal to allow the prison and criminal justice system to dehumanize them. If anything we learn how dehumanizing this system is in our own country. The greater lesson in the book is no matter how bad things can get there are decent people out there to help. Once you open yourself up to them changes can occur.

Very Solid Sharp Book, July 16, 2000
Reviewer: mistermaxxx from usa
I Was Like Lazarus I Couldn't put this Book down. I Find This Book to be Very Moving. It captures so many Injustices. It shows how little value was placed on one Man. No Matter who he was or how much Money he made he was still a Black Man. Guilty Sight on Seen. This Book also shows the Loving&Caring way of the Canadians. It's amazing what reading can do for ones mind or the Journey it will take you on. This book is about Freedom. The Canadians Freed Lazarus&the Canadians together with Lazarus Helped free Rubin Carter. The Importance of Reading. If Lazarus had have never read that Book a Great Injustice would have never been solved.

Customer Comments

The Bible of the Early American Prize Ring, April 11, 2000
Reviewer: Raymond Miller from Columbia, SC
The most scholarly treatise of the early prize ring in America that has ever been written. Elliott Gorn picks up where Pierce Egan and Nat Fleischer left off as the premier chronicler of boxing's illustrious past. This book covers every facet of bare-knuckle prizefighting during the days when men such as "Yankee" Sullivan, John Morrissey, and John L. Sullivan ruled the ring. From "The First American Champions" and "The Meanings of Prizefighting" to "Triumph and Decline" and "The End of the Bare-Knuckle Era": this great work describes what boxing was really like when men fought to a finish and many fights were winner take all.

The Manly Art is first rate., June 30, 1999
Reviewer: encinosa@hotmail.com from miami, florida
This is an excellent, well researched piece that historians will enjoy. Lots of detail, all well placed in the context of the times.

Fascinating History of 19th century Bare-Knuckled Fighting, June 24, 1997
Reviewer: A reader
This book not only reports on facts (like
dates, fighters, places, etc.), but also on the
whole milieu of bare-knuckled prize fighting.
It helps to explain what would drive men to
participate in a pastime that was both brutal and outlawed.

A great read for history buffs as well as boxing fans.
I highly recommend it

The complete collection...., December 14, 2000
Reviewer: Garrett P Keim from Brooklyn, NY
Thoroughly enjoyable. The book presents some of the cleanest yet literary sports writing ever on a sport that is woefully under covered. Mr. Ward chose perfectly, marrying a historical overview of the sport with the beauty of it. I just hope this book will not be buried on the bottom shelf where too many great sports books are left to die.

Of Champion Quality, May 8, 2000
Reviewer: A reader from New York City
Despite some pretentiousness, many redundancies, and an often poorly stitched together narrative, Joyce Carol Oates brings a scalpel-like insight to the incomparable phenomenon that is boxing. She will deepen your understanding -- and take your breath away.

I wonder what Miss Oates thinks of the apparent growing popularity of female boxers (surely, the oxymoron non pareil). My guess is that she sees it for precisely what it is -- political correctness carried to its ultimate and inevitable fatuity. A woman who boxes may be to drool over by lipstick lesbians, but she will always be that absurd and grotesque anomaly -- a woman who boxes. The one thing she'll never be is a "Boxer."

Perhaps another book will be forthcoming from Miss Oates, one that will explore this perversion of the "Sweet Science." My guess is not -- why waste time on the ridiculous when, in "On Boxing," she has spoken so well on what is sublime.

Blood ballet, March 2, 1999
Reviewer: A reader from Egoli, Africa
Six years of bouts with local bruisers and grainy films of Marciano and Louis, and I retired with my fascination intact. Before I chanced upon Oates no book on boxing quite took me beyond the physical. An extraordinary insightful book that subtly find its way to the soul of this controversial sport.